While there is some preliminary evidence that sunlight, heat, and humidity could slow the spread of COVID-19, the summer months also promise a host of new risks, The Washington Post reports. Soaring temperatures will either compel people wanting relief to go outside, where they could get infected, or the pandemic will force people to stay indoors, where they could swelter. Both the pandemic and extreme heat pose a mortal risk to the elderly and the infirm....

The new demo video is chock full of those crucial little details. A game engine is the development environment in which games are created. Unreal Engine has been around since back in 1998, and since then it has powered familiar games, including Star Wars titles, the recent Final Fantasy VII remake, and even Fortnite. The technology goes beyond games to uses like film graphics, broadcast events, and even making renderings of architecture and cars....

Researchers and impacted communities have known for a long time that these disparities, rooted in discriminatory housing policies and other drivers, exist. A new study, published on April 28 in the journal Science Advances, aimed to tease out which emission sources—ranging from industrial pollution to agriculture and road dust—are the most relevant drivers of racial and ethnic PM2.5 exposure disparities across the US. “We were hoping we would be able to say, these are the main source types that are contributing to environmental injustice,” says lead author Christopher Tessum, an assistant professor in environmental engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign—which could then potentially provide points of focus for driving down those exposures....

If you have no idea how to start, you may want to look into these discounted, new-age lamps. They’re all on sale for a limited time—no discount code needed. LampDepot LED Levitating Lamp A lamp and a central piece of decor all in one, this levitating lamp uses magnetic levitation technology to spin on its own above its accompanying base, effectively resembling its celestial counterpart. It also comes with touch sensor controls and 3 lighting modes so you can choose the lighting you want for your space....

Two-thirds of U.S. residents and one-fifth of the world population cannot see the Milky Way because of light pollution. As the International Year of Astronomy gets underway, advocates hope that economic pressure and concern for night light’s effect on migrating birds will also help curb this issue. Here are pictures of what most people are missing.In another instance of technology turning the usual process of development on its head, a team at Flickr is trying to reverse-map the world, based on the tags provided by shots taken at a location....

According to the EU, the DSA and DMA have two big goals: “create a safer digital space in which the fundamental rights of all users of digital services are protected” and “establish a level playing field to foster innovation, growth, and competitiveness, both in the European Single Market and globally.” In practice, this means overseeing how large social networks, search engines, and other tech companies do business, and limiting how they use consumer data....

The 17-minute address on June 2 came after a mass shooter killed 19 children and two adults at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. A few days prior, a white supremacist killed 10 people and wounded three more in a supermarket in a predominately Black neighborhood in Buffalo, New York. This past week also saw shooting sprees in Oklahoma, Iowa, and Pennsylvania. So far there have been 246 mass shootings in 2022 alone, according to NPR, with many young casualties....

“Fur for the Future” is an educational film made around 1950 by the Idaho Fish and Game Commission. It was recently rediscovered, digitized, and released to YouTube by the Idaho Department of Fish and Game and the Idaho Historical Society. North America’s once-gigantic beaver population suffered greatly from the fur trade that accompanied European colonization of the continent, but by the 1940s was experiencing a fresh boom. Rather than just kill the creatures, Idaho relocated many beavers to new streams where they thought the beavers might thrive....

The probe is well into the fourth decade of its mission, and it hasn’t come near a planet since it flew past Saturn in 1980. But even as it drifts farther and farther from a dimming sun, it’s still sending information back to Earth, as scientists recently reported in The Astrophysical Journal. For decades, Voyager has been sailing away at around 11 miles (17 kilometers) every second. Each year, it travels another 3....

The flight marked the first time that Sikorsky had tested the precursor for this Black Hawk autonomy system in the air. The set-up was a simpler version of an autonomous flight system called Matrix that the company has already been testing in another helicopter, known as the Sikorsky Autonomy Research Aircraft, or SARA. It can already do futuristic things, like fly itself from one point to another after a pilot tells it to using an input device as simple as a tablet....

The uncrewed surface vessel Ranger is one of at least two robot ships that the Navy uses to test autonomy, in collaboration with the Department of Defense’s Strategic Capabilities office. Testing these ships, from autonomous travel to operations alongside other vessels, is part of the ominously named “Ghost Fleet Overlord” program. As a program, Ghost Fleet Overlord dates back to at least 2017. And while the USV Ranger’s operating systems are all advanced technology, the actual body of the ship is a commercial model....

That’s what a new study, published yesterday in the journal BMJ Open, found by tracking rates of dementia diagnosis and levels of air pollution for older people living in the Greater London area. The paper, which also evaluated other factors like traffic noise, smoking, and diabetes, is another step toward connecting the dots between pollution and neurocognitive disease. “While the findings need to be treated with caution, the study is an important addition to the growing evidence for a possible link between traffic pollution and dementia and should encourage further research to investigate this,” Iain Carey, lead author on the study and epidemiologist at St....

The novel coronavirus will likely spread across U.S. communities, according to a recent update from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). It is not a question of “if” but “when” the COVID-19 virus escalates within our borders, Nancy Messonnier, the CDC’s director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said during a Tuesday media briefing. After observing rapid person-to-person spread in South Korea, Iran, and Italy, CDC officials now expect the trend to reach the United States....

According to a recent study published in the journal PLOS One, alfalfa plants are the first greens that future astronauts should plant on Mars. The team of researchers from Iowa State University found that the forage crop can survive in tough volcanic soil similar to what is found on Mars. It could be also be used as an additional fertilizer ingredient to grow other food like lettuce, turnips, and radishes....

We’ve lost only 18 people in space—including 14 NASA astronauts—since humankind first took to strapping ourselves to rockets. That’s relatively low, considering our history of blasting folks into space without quite knowing what would happen. When there have been fatalities, the entire crew has died, leaving no one left to rescue. But as we move closer to a human mission to Mars, there’s a higher likelihood that individuals will die—whether that’s on the way, while living in harsh environments, or some other reason....

If this happens, the decision would have far-reaching and damaging impacts on every aspect of reproductive health care, experts say, including for people who experience miscarriages. The medicines and surgical procedures used in abortions are also used to treat miscarriages, so restricting abortion access means that people in many states will have fewer options to safely manage the unexpected loss of their pregnancies. “For those of us on the ground who care for pregnant patients regardless of what their outcome is, our hands are tied and will be further tied to deliver evidence-based care,” says Courtney Schreiber, an OB-GYN and chief of the division of family planning at Penn Medicine....

Soy Lecithin Lecithin is ubiquitous in the natural world. At least trace amounts of it are found in almost all living cells. Once considered a waste product from soybean oil processing, it is now one of the most common emulsifiers in food processing. French scientist Maurice Gobley was the first to identify lecithin, back in 1805. He found that egg yolks are about 30 percent lecithin. Gobley named his discovery after the Greek word for egg yolk, lekithos....

That’s not always the case. In 2005 reports of a bomber in Baghdad left 960 people crushed to death on a bridge. A 2015 stampede in Mina, Saudi Arabia, the city where pilgrims stay while visiting the holy site Mecca, killed 800. In 1989, 100 people died due to crowd crush during a soccer match in Sheffield, England. But while it may be easier said than done, experts say the best thing to do in these situations is to take a deep breath and try to think logically....

But to save you a lot of time and fruitless reading, the short, honest, but perhaps least thrilling answer is that no one really knows. Don’t fret. Scientists have some well-founded, albeit mind-bending ideas about what might be going on. To understand them, though, you first need to grasp some basic concepts about black holes. What are black hole and what makes them so weird? Grab a small object, like a pencil, near you....

Sources/Links: Luna 3; Luna 3; Soviet lunar missions page; Zond 8; Lunar Orbiter 3; Lunar Orbiter photo gallery; Le Voyage Dans la Lune; Apollo archive on Flikr. Help us do science! I’ve teamed up with researcher Paige Brown Jarreau to create a survey of Vintage Space readers. By participating, you’ll be helping me improve Vintage Space and contributing to SCIENCE on blog readership. You will also get FREE science art from Paige’s Photography for participating, as well as a chance to win a t-shirt and other perks!...